I know it's been a stupid long time, but look what I made!

 It's my big brown vulva!

 notice the hiding clitoris.

 And the button G-spot.

This makes me happy!

And we have balls!

My new dryer balls! I think that I'm going to try an acrylic core with a roving overlay next. I can't see why that won't work. I guess I'll find out! Stay tuned!

DIY Felted Dryer Balls

I'm on a major cleaning kick which is a good thing because I have visitors coming this summer and the house has never had a good going over. I've been making cleaners out of vinegar, my home made liquid soap, isopropyl alcohol essential oils and using microfibers. Things are getting really clean and smell really good. Too bad I'm really bad at picking up clutter. But Kevin, bless his soul, is a great declutterer so we will make a good team. I have been coveting those felted dryer balls lately since I don't like dryer sheets and i think the balls look really nice and they are reusable for years. I looked up a few diy sites and found them all using 100% wool yarn to make them. I checked my stash and it is all acrylic. boo me. But I have some roving from the soap felting project. I decided to give that a try since the yarn was just being wound up into a ball. I took strips of roving and rolled them into a tight ball. Then I took a needle and felted the ends so the ball would not come apart. Next I felted colored roving over the entire ball Then I put tjem in panty hose separated by a bt of cotton string. I tossed the bundle in the washing machine set on HOT and we will see what we get in about 2 hours!

Wow, I hardly know where to start. Fibroids-still there. Bleeding- still redonkulus. Ah, life goes on. But oh, the changes! Lets see to catch you up, I was very happy to be teaching in a challenging middle school at last writing. I was hired on a probationary certificate with all tests passed I just needed my 180 days of classroom time to get my full certificate. The school district promptly lost my paperwork which delayed my start date by 5 weeks even though I was teaching at full capacity during that time. No problem I thought, that 5 weeks can get carried over to the next school year with no problem. Except there was a problem. I got released from my campus ostensibly because of state budget cuts, last in first out as the principal said but several new teachers that were hired after me were not released. I was in shock. I had already signed a contract for the next year so I thought I was good. I had to go apply for a new job with all 800 of the other laid off teachers, most of whom had much more tenure than I did. Needless to say I did not find anything seeing as how I only had .75 of a year's experience and a probationary certificate. I was offered a substitute Spanish position at the same school I was let go from, talk about weird, at my regular rate until the district decided to terminate our contracts or place us left overs in positions. I was doing lead teacher work in a subject outside my range, lesson plans, content, assessments just like a lead teacher but I got NO CREDIT for being the lead teacher so I could not fulfill my certificate requirements and my probationary cert lapsed. I was going to have to re=test and retake the classes with my alternative certification program at a cost of 5000, which i did not have, if I wanted to keep trying to get certified. I was supremely frustrated by this time and the job was taking a toll on my health. By about the 10th week of school the kids were figuring out that I was not a "real" Spanish teacher and I was starting to have management problems. I had no books, no real curriculum and no guidance. I went above and beyond providing engaging content fro those kids well beyond the place holder position as sub I was in. Yet I was evaluated just like a lead teacher and the like. My blood pressure went up to 171/100 one night and I had to take a weeks leave of absence to get it down. I knew the writing was on the wall. As long as I worked hard providing content the school was never going to hire a real lead teacher and I was never going to get credit for the work I was doing. The school board voted to buy out those of us who were laid off if we would resign in November of 2011. I took the buyout. I was in a no win situation. So I looked for work. The district was not hiring subs without certifications anymore because they had just laid off 800 certified teachers and the pool was =flooded so there was no teaching jobs to be had. My resume is spotty so finding work became a real challenge. I have no technology education formally, I was out of the work force for almost 10 years, I'm 50. Strike one, two , and three.I applied at anything but no bites. In late june 2012,I was trolling Craigslist for jobs and what did I see? Capriotti's, only my favorite sub shop ever, was coming to Dallas and was hiring. Great news, I jumped to apply. Bad news, the starting pay was 7.50/hour. But a job is a job and that is where I have been ever since. I am appreciated at this job, I was called the best cashier in the company by 2 supervisors. I work hard, do what I need to do and do it well. I was even asked to manage a store but in all honesty I do not want to be a manager of high school kid, and those who's life's path puts me in tangental contact with felons etc. I swore I was not going to work in food service again anyway. But here I am. This job is not my be all and end all situation anyway. I am training to do voice overs at last. We took the last of our money and put it into training classes and a demo tape so I can persue this dream. This sounds great. But it has been hard hard hard because I don't get 40 hours at work, I get about 26 per week which is not enough for us to get by on. Each month there is more month than money by the 20th. This has been hard on the entire family. Then in January on the 20th, my Dad died. We spent a wonderful Christmas with him which eased the pain of his death for me but it was still disruptive. Then, my daughter attempted suicide. It seems things had been building for a while and she was not communicating with us just how bad she felt and she was not sharing with her therapist this information as well. We got her hospitalized for a week, then got her on meds and in intensive therapy weekly. A month later she was back in the hospital for suicidal ideation again, this time ad a different facility again for a week. Then last Thursday she began to hallucinate and hear voices telling her to harm me and herself. Back into yet another hospital she went and has been there ever since. We have to make a decision about residential treatment or day treatment with what I find to be very insufficient information from the attending MD on her case. I'm irritated by the process and I think I don't like the center they have picked for her. Kevin has been traveling during this entire situation so much of this has fallen to me alone. I'm overwhelmed.

Uterine Fibroid embolization Day 1

I've been home now for about 18 hours. The procedure was a breeze. I went in on Wednesday at 7:30 am and was back in my hospital bed by noon. This was the first time I've had concsious sedaation surgery. I was very nervous at first because I thought I would feel the cut inot my frmeoral atery but I did not. In fact they had started before I even realized it. It was totally painless. I was instructed to hold my breath at times during the procedure which I could do with no problem. The only problem that happened was my heart rate and blood pressure dropped after they gave me the Versed and I felt l like I was going ot puke but they got it back ip quickly and I felt better. It never happened again even though I got a second dose of Versed during the procedure.
Now about the procedure, They went in through my femoral artery( right at the pubis/leg juncture) and snaked a catheter past my uterine arteries and then blocked the arteries that fed the fibroid with a plastic material so that the blood flow to them would stop and they would die. I prefered this to a hysterectomy since I'm only a few years out from menopause and bleeding won't be an issue then. After they were finished I was wheeled back to the recovery room where Kevin was to greet me and we waited for a room to open up.. I got a morphine pump and tried to dose off but I was not very comfortable at first. It took a good 12 hours to get to the point I was pain free. I kinda expected to be in some discomport so i didn't use the morphine enough. My blood sugar went up in response to the pain. But we finally got things calmed down and I felt fine, just drug stupid. They let me go home Thursday at about noon. I've had no pain since then, just an ache at the incision site and the occasional cramp in my uterus that aches but nothing severe. I'm not going to stop the pain meds until tomorrow though just to be safe.
I hope this works to deal with my fibroids. The anemia and heavy bleeding has been ruling my life for too long and I really want my life back.

curried kale chips

So here are today's finished kale chip.These are very different than the other chips. The other chips were delicate and fragile, translucent and emerald green(I used curly regular old kale). They tasted of kale only sweet and vinegary and salty. These are more akin to hippie food. The kale seems to be serving as a vehicle for the sauce dried on them.( I used dinosaur kale for this batch) The dino kale is much sturdier and does not fall apart as easily when fully dried. They have a very satisfying crunch to them and the curry flavor goes nicely with the greens flavor which is kinda masked. I question the full digestability of this batch, the chips take a lot of chewing which tells me that the cell walls are pretty intact. I'm not a raw foodist so I want my veggies to have lost some of their cell structure when I eat them. I'm not a cow. But as an alternative to high carb chips or other junk snack food these are very nice. They won't stand up to dippping, but they both provide a satisfying crunch so lacking in my low carb diet.

It's been a while since I've updated my blog. The summer is whizzin' by at amazin' speed. Spencer has returned from her trip to Canada more determined to become a Canadian than ever. It has been a summer of frugal living this year so no huge projects. From the garden I have gotten a watermelon, some basil and I see that I'll have jalapenos and eggplants in a few days. The water melon is JINORMOUS, it takes up about 3/4 of the garden. I have 4 melons that I see. My tomatoes are not looking so good so I don't know if I'll get a crop out of them.
A friend moved away and bequeathed me her dehydrator. I am having a blast with it. So far I've dehydrated that watermelon I picked too early, it was flavorful but pale and not very sweet. It turned into the most delicious watermelon candy. Dehydrating watermelon seems wrong on so many levels but it really does work. I've also made kale chips. Glorious, delicious kale chips. The first batch was with curly kale and olive oil, sherry vinegar and sea salt. NOM. I pretty much ate the entire batch. Today I am making a more ambitious recipe, curried kale chips made with much less oil and tossed with a curry flavored sauce based on sunflower seeds and tomato. A very hippie, raw food inspired thing. It smells wonderful but I am skeptical about the raw food aspect. So often Raw foodists dont' seem to see food as a pleasure and a sensual endeavor. But I can't knock them until I've tried them. So here goes. I found the recipe here:http://poxacuatl.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/kale-chips/ a beautifully photographed expose on her process.
The alcohol project is moving along although it has hit a few bumps in the road due to the economy. Had a great time working with my collaborator in June. Slow and steady.
So I leave you for now, dear reader. I smell some kale drying.

Earth Day 2010

Well it seemed like a good day to bushwack the back yard, what with it being Earth Day and all. Kevin did a great job clearing the forest although as you can see from the pix he seemed intent on protecting his frontal lobe rather than his eyes. The garden plot had been rounded up and the grass was actively dying so I moved compost onto the bed. 4 years of guinea pig poop does not decompose very well if you don't do anything to the pile. Down toward the bottom there was soil but it is mostly still wood chips. After I get this pile moved, I need to rethink how I compost and how I attend to it. My next project is to relocate the compost pile and get a rabbit hutch. The soil here is so poor that it needs all the amendments I can get. In that pile of compost I didn't see any worms at all.